Diaz Canales and Guarnido are working from the American noir that Chinatown revived rather than from the 1940s originals, and the tell is the period: Blacksad is set in a 1950s America reconstructed with the same slightly over-saturated nostalgia the 1970s neo-noirs used. The plots follow too. A private investigator is hired for a narrow job, and the case opens onto institutional corruption he cannot touch, with an ending that resolves the mystery and fixes nothing. Filed MEDIUM: an inheritance from a revival rather than a cited source.